


Pretense

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Post War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-30
Updated: 2006-09-30
Packaged: 2018-10-27 16:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10812720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Hermione feels as if she's watching her life transpire from the outside rather than living it. This is what's on her mind as she sits here, waiting for them, in the same pub where they come weekly to rehearse their lives.





	Pretense

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

_Pretense_

~

Hermione Granger’s been thinking lately.

She’s been analysing things to the degree that only she tends to do, trying to objectively consider their lives at the present time. The way they've tried to engage in normal teenage endeavors since it’s all been finished. How they carry out their daily routines in a rote sequence of motions that seems almost scripted.

It occurs to her that over the last year she and Ron and Harry have been going through the motions. They’ve been busy acquiring the trappings of life as if there were some sort of checklist: rent a flat, start working, seek out social activities. Fill up the calendar.  
  
And now they go through their days pretending that it didn't affect them as much as it did. Or take as much out of them as it took.  
  
Hermione feels as if she’s watching it all transpire from the outside rather than living it. This is what’s on her mind as she sits here, waiting for them, in the same pub where they come weekly to rehearse their lives.

_A rehearsal.  
_  
It’s an apt comparison, she thinks. Hermione acts the part of a self-sufficient and confident young witch, but on the inside is far from complete. She’s had a recurring role in which she dates one perfectly nice bloke after another who is guilty of nothing but posing as a possibility. A chance of something more, when she knows they never will be.

It’s all a rehearsal for something else, the real part she hasn’t quite got to yet. Sometimes it just rings so false she feels her life is one continuous masquerade.

~

He walks briskly, but not because it’s cold. His strides are long because he knows it will shorten the wait until he sees her again.

Ron Weasley has never fancied himself to be much of an expert on emotions, but he is well aware of what he feels for her. Recognises it for exactly what it is. And while he’d like to think she’s waiting there just for him, he realises that may not be the case. To her, he still might be only one in the group.

Still, he can’t slow his pace. He’s tried in the past: tried not to run headlong toward her, tried to quell his anxiousness to see her. But he’s learned over time that suppressing his need is pointless. It only comes back, greater and stronger and all the more consuming. The acceptance of it washed over him some time ago. It was liberating, really, to finally embrace the certainty that he’ll continue to circle round and back again until she is ready.

He’s fairly certain she’s not ready. Somewhere deep inside, something has its hold on her. He can see it stretch out in front of her as plainly as if she were walking across a vast field. And though her struggle seems to be pushing him aside, he’s never been more completely sure of himself. Of what’s waiting for them on the other side.

Approaching the pub, he senses the familiar, overpowering combination of anticipation and hesitation that comes from knowing she’s near.

~

When the door opens, he meets her gaze immediately. He doesn’t need to glance around the pub to locate her. He just looks straight at her. Logically, she knows it’s because they always tend to sit in this booth, but she chooses to attribute it to some other connection between them.

To say that she is pleased or thrilled or happy wouldn’t quite capture the complexity of what she feels; it’s more of an overwhelming sense of relief. Like the first breath a swimmer takes upon breaking the surface of the water - it’s that renewing. She only feels this at ease when she’s with one of them, and she assumes it will probably always be that way.

Ron takes off his cloak and hangs it on the peg on the wall. “Harry can’t make it.”

Hermione nods. She’s not surprised. Harry’s been distant, too. They’re all in stuck in this torpor together, which is somewhat worrisome but oddly comforting.

He slides onto the bench next to her, close enough that she can take in his wintry scent - a mix of the chilly dry air and hardwood burning somewhere. Despite the seat being wide enough across for three people, the length of his thigh is in close contact with hers and she is amazed at the warmth of him, considering he’s just come in from the cold.

“Tell me,” he says, calling out her silence.

She could feign confusion, tell him she’s just tired. But what’s the point? If she can’t reveal herself to him, then who?

“Do you sometimes feel a bit numb?”

“Course I do.”

“Everyone seems so relieved to be getting on with their lives. At first, that’s all you ever heard. People talking about the ‘cloud being lifted,’ moving on, being happy. Being grateful. I don’t mean to feel ungrateful…”

“You’re not, Hermione. Give it some time.” Ron misses her fire, and he’s been worried. At present, he wants to wrap himself around her and just fix it. He settles for sliding his arm across her back and pulling her into him. She seems to come closer not just willingly, but eagerly. He wonders if he’s imagining it.

“I just feel like I’m pretending all the time,” she continues. “I want to live my life in a way that justifies…but it feels…paused.”

She turns her chin up now, and the closeness of her looking at him so directly makes his breath hitch.

In that single moment, it all becomes stunningly clear to Ron what he must do. All these months, he’s been waiting for her to be ready. He sees now that he’s the only one who can help her get there.

“What were we fighting for, Ron? Why do I still feel this way?”

Ron decides that waiting for the perfect time isn’t working. Realises that just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not _right._

“I feel it, too,” he says. “And it’s because something’s still missing.”

When she searches his face, she knows what ‘something’ he means.

She’s entirely torn between savouring the moment and cataloging the memory…his warm breath against her cheek, his eyes looking so hopeful and desirous, the flood of shared recollections washing over them, bringing them from the distant past right up to this very second. Together.

But then it happens. Their lips meet and Hermione forgets to think. She just surrenders completely to it until she feels him pull back slightly.

Lips still on hers, he speaks in a voice that is quiet and hoarse, but soothing to her ears. “Hermione, can we go home now?”

He doesn’t mean _today_ now. He means now that it’s all behind us, now that we’re finally at this place at the same time, now that we’re ready to start a new chapter. And she knows exactly what he means.

“Yes,” she says, and then, “finally.”

One frantic minute and two hurried Apparations bring them to her flat, where they stand in her small parlour looking at each other expectantly. It could be awkward, but it’s not.

“Hermione,” he says softly.

The small nod of her head brings him toward her, and he reaches out almost roughly in his haste to get closer. She gasps in surprise, but it’s lost as he crushes his mouth against hers.

For a brief moment she stands frozen, and Ron wonders whether he's made a mistake. Maybe it is too soon; perhaps she’ll reconsider or push him away. But then suddenly she’s kissing him back, opening her mouth, moving her lips and tongue with his. He pulls her closer, pressing their bodies together, and drinks her in.

Hermione is overcome with the growing sense of urgency between them, with how it’s gaining momentum, like a cart rolling downhill. She thinks she’s never felt anything as amazing as the kisses he brushes across her face, her jaw, her neck.

And when he slides his hands inside her robes and around her to gently caress her back, she quite honestly feels she might die if she doesn’t get closer to him.

Then her hands are at his clothing as well, looking for a way in, seeking the warmth of skin on skin. He sighs with relief at the awareness that they’re on the same path, at where they’re heading.

“Ron, please,” is all she can murmur, but he knows what she’s asking.

And it’s in that breath that Ron realizes that he won’t be able to go slowly, that he can’t take his time. All the years of waiting for this, all the months of holding back--and he can’t savour it, not when their need is so great.

Mercifully Hermione feels the same way and within a few moments of unspoken requests and understood consent, they find themselves at the destination where they’ve been heading for as long as either of them can remember.

It’s not the scene she’s imagined. She knows they are skipping over important things. There should be slow explorations, and whispered endearments and promises. But it all seems rather unnecessary.  
  
Those thoughts of pace, and measure, and caution are foolish in the context of what they’ve meant to each other. What they mean to each other. And hesitation like that has kept them from making the connections for so long.

To be here with him now, like this, is more exhilarating than anything she’s ever called perfection, and more gratifying than diligence. She finds the order and meaning that have eluded her all these months.

And Ron, well, he’s lost in her, finally finding completion and removal of all his doubts.

For both of them, what they’ve been seeking has long been masquerading as mere friendship.

 


End file.
